The Idea of Him (26 page)

38

Hold on Tight

Six hours after I left the Willingham Hotel, I saw Caitlin across the room at the Fulton Film Festival panel she had produced for
Belle de Jour II.
She avoided my eyes. My mind had been bouncing back and forth between scenes of Wade and Caitlin in love and Jackie in tears over something I couldn't even begin to decipher. I had no idea when I would figure out the cause of Jackie's crying, but I sensed it would finally explain her role in this whole drama.

Murray grabbed my shoulder. “Why is the room so fuckin' empty?”

I turned back to him. “Don't forget the buzz on
Belle de Jour II
is horrendous. The critics have been brutal, no other word for it. People are discounting it even before it opens.”

“If the critics knew anything, they'd be making movies. They're the fuckin' gym teachers of the entertainment world. Where's Caitlin?” He looked around. “You never should have let her . . .”

I spun around, my nose inches from his. “You know what, Murray? Let me put this to you in terms you can understand: Svetlana's a blond stick insect with nothing in her brain. That's why no one's here. No matter what you and Wade have done to try to prop up this film, the girl has no career and the film is a piece-of-shit remake you all engineered to keep Max happy. Not even Hillsinger Consulting can turn this one around.”

Murray was silenced for once, with no comeback. Next Caitlin slinked up to us. But Murray sulked away as if his mommy had just screamed at him.

“I don't need you to defend me, Allie,” she said.

“That's good, because I wasn't.”

“I don't know what to say, Allie.” Her lips were pressed so tightly together I could see a white line around her gloss.

“Spare me, please.” I saw the whole thing in my mind's eye. Wade couldn't help himself from grabbing the cookie jar and a nice little tight athletic ass. Guys never paid attention to Caitlin, so she was a willing sucker. Simple as that.

“Well,” she added, “you said he wasn't your soul mate. I knew you didn't fully love him. So I—”

“So you what?” I crossed my arms.

“It's been awful, every bit of it. And even more so, because now I've lost—”

“You screwed my husband right in front of me. End of story.” I turned to walk, but then decided I needed to give the knife one tiny twist. “By the way, everything you know is about to come crashing down around you. Hold on tight.”

 

“TELL ME, SVETLANA,”
Delsie Arceneaux asked onstage in front of a few audience members, as she yanked on the seam of her kelly green suit skirt from atop an uncomfortable-looking barstool. Loops and loops of Lanvin, thick pearl and grosgrain bow necklaces, cascaded down her chest. She pushed her sexy, bold librarian glasses she didn't need up the bridge of her nose and went for one of her trademark and, therefore, searing lines of questioning: “Is this your big break?”

“Allie,” said a voice in the dark from behind where I was standing. “Allie. Come here.”

I whipped my head around. At the sight of him, I cracked my neck to loosen the tension, and it sounded like twenty chopsticks breaking in two.

“I've been watching you,” James finally said.

“For how long?”

“Long time. Back here in the dark. And you didn't even sense me.” From the cushy maroon velvet theater seat, he clasped his fingers behind his always messy, dirty blond hair. I felt so relieved to see him there that every muscle in my body suddenly relaxed with a big, internal, physical
aaahhhhh
. His strong arms and elbows pointed out behind him, and he leaned back in his chair in a way that New Yorkers just didn't sit. He placed his ankle on his knee and put his black sweater in his lap. He looked like he was readying himself in his Super Bowl lounger to view the game rather than about to watch a precious little snobby New York screening. His scruffy stubble crawled up the side of his strong jaw. I could see a slight change in his eyes.

“Is it over?” I asked. “With your dad?”

“Took a few more days, but yes. Both parents are gone: just me now.”

“Okay,” I answered. “I'm sorry.”

“Thanks, but I'm actually relieved.” He stood up and grabbed my arm to draw me toward him in the dark. I tried to pull away, but he held on and said, “Don't even think of resisting, Allie. Let's go grab a drink.”

“There isn't a drink in Manhattan big enough to handle me at this point. Plus I kind of have to stay . . .”

“Yeah, ‘kind of' being the operative phrase,” he whispered boldly. “You don't have to stay. These people are boring. This is all foreign to me, but don't tell me you don't know exactly how long this panel lasts; you did this stuff in your sleep when you were in your twenties.” He grabbed the program. “It says right here. Discussion: forty-five minutes. Film clips: one hour and thirty minutes. We'll slip you back in five minutes before the lights go back on. We're getting you a drink the size of Manhattan then. You don't really have a choice anyway. Let's go.”

 

“I'M FINE,” I
said, my voice cracking as I gave in and we headed outside.

“Don't tell me you're fine when you're not fine.”

It felt like a huge cord was twisting inside my chest. “Are you still here alone?”

He exhaled through his nose. “Yeah, Clementine couldn't come over for the funeral.”

That fear of life alone started settling in and gripping me . . . “Oh, well, that's okay; she couldn't come over. I mean, fine. I would have come to the funeral, you know.”

“You know, it was just like three of us spreading his ashes in his favorite part of the shore; we didn't want to do anything much.”

I so wanted to be there for him even if he felt he didn't need me. I would have
shown
him he needed me there,
especially
if Clementine wasn't there. “I don't know where we can go,” I said, quickstepping to keep up with his loping pace.

All I knew for sure was this: everything felt surreal because I kept feeling inside that James was the answer even though he wasn't acting like the answer. He was acting like we were close old pals, not, as I decided in my raw state, the two most emotionally connected people in our galaxy. We were walking down Gansevoort Street in the West Village at eight o'clock at night, and he looked more like a lumberjack than a native.

It was quiet on the barren cobblestone street. The stores had closed for the day. Beautifully lit mannequins in the windows were posed as if they were frozen in the act of doing something important. On their way to a party. Checking out a guy about to ask for a date. A still frame of players caught up in the immediacy of the city. I was so on edge that the mannequins almost scared me. It felt like a
Twilight Zone
episode where they would come alive, walk out of their stores in the darkness, and say something to me like: “
Allie. The reckoning is here.
”

“Look.” James pointed to a bistro on the corner. There were about twelve small round tables outside, all empty but one.

“We're getting some food right now; I'm making that unilateral decision. You look like you need something solid. We can be back by the time the film is over.” He put his arm around me and squeezed me tight against him. “C'mon, kid. Lighten up. You got the weight of the world on your shoulders.” He turned to me and loosened up my shoulders by rolling them around in opposite directions, then started doing quick karate chops on my back. “Jesus, Allie, you're a mess.”

Karate chops, like an older brother would give his sister, were not what I wanted. I needed caresses like he'd suddenly decided I was the one he should have been with all along, especially since his girlfriend was so far away. France was almost another planet, after all. We started walking again with his arm tight around me. “You're the new orphan,” I told him as I rested my head on him.

“It's been forty-eight hours and I've already moved on. He's at peace.”

I turned and searched his face. “You seem like you have; really, you do.”

“You know what?” James said softly. “I have. He was who he was, plain and simple, and now he's gone. I need to live my own life now.”

“Sounds better than when we talked last week when you were calling him an ass on his deathbed. You seem really okay and healthy now. Not common forty-eight hours after the death of a parent, but good. Really good.”

He looked at me hard as we stood inside a building alcove and placed a hand on my cheek. “Yeah, you could use a dose of healthy, too. You are too tough on yourself, Allie.” He grabbed my hand and made a small outline of the scar on my wrist. I pulled my hand back. “It's been almost twenty years since your dad passed.”

I shot him a look. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It's supposed to mean move on and grab your precious life by the balls.” He held on to my arms as if that would help him connect to me more. “Live a little on your own terms. Hell, live a little on your own!”

Not what I wanted to hear. I was not at that moment in the happy, confident, I-can-do-this box by any stretch. I took a deep breath and then said, “I'm doing what I need to do; I'm ending my marriage.” I tried not to sound defensive.

“For real, it's over for good with that prick?”

I rolled my eyes at James. “Stop.” His insulting Wade felt like he was insulting me for marrying him and I didn't need that piled on. “It's serious what's going on. And yes, it's seriously over. And it's tragic to end a marriage and complicated, so please don't be joking about what a prick he is, even if he is.” I let out a small smile for the first time in weeks. “It makes me feel like I should have known better, even if you did warn me over a few beers a dozen years ago.”

“Well, I salute this move, and but what are you doing for you that makes you—”

“I'm writing all the time, diving into work, thinking about some new strategies to make the Fulton Festival make me some money. That's handling my life on my own terms.”

“That's the scaffolding. I'm talking way inside, those swirling emotions I see on your face. You know, when I see you less often and we talk about everything like it was yesterday, you're still frozen in that Daddy's little girl mode. I wonder if you forget your dad died in that plane crash, not you.”

“That's ridiculous. I'm a grown woman.”

“It isn't ridiculous.” And then in a quieter tone he added, “Jesus, it's good to see you. I need an old friend tonight.”

I smiled back at him. “Me too, you have no idea.” I needed a little more than a friend but that didn't seem to register with him.

I sat down on a metal staircase, trying to move a bit closer to him.

“C'mon . . . no choice . . . we're going to get you some dinner,” he said, tweaking my nose, not exactly a sexual move on his part. I figured I should maybe lean into him again. I put my hand on his thigh and rubbed the inside a little in a way a friend wouldn't. He very quickly pointed to the restaurant terrace and pulled me up. “Look at that far table. No one will hear us. You can tell me every fucked-up thing about your fucked-up life.”

“I'll be cold.” And I sat back down. He sat next to me and thank God pulled me tight to him. Maybe he was getting it. With Clementine gone, this could really work. Timing is everything and Fate was finally on my side.

He took off his thick black sweater and put it around my shoulders. A garbage truck lumbered by us creaking side to side on the uneven cobblestones. Two men standing on the rear of the truck stared at us, the only other people on the street.

James turned to me and said, “You know, I was looking through photos of Dad last week and I found so many of you and me from way back.”

“And . . . ?”
So we were meant to be?

“It really got me thinking how close we were.”

“What the hell? So now we aren't close?” My eyes filled with tears. I suddenly felt like I was losing everything: James, Tommy, Caitlin, and my prickish husband to the authorities.

James shook his head. “Of course we're still close, Allie, but you have that look like you think I'm going to solve everything for you when that's just impossible. I mean, you're in this horrendous storm now for sure, but you're the only one who can navigate yourself out of it.” He took my hand and folded my fingers one by one into a fist. I didn't hear anything he said as I moved my face closer to his. Unfortunately, I didn't take note of his craning his neck back. “Sometimes, I wrap myself in the mythology of us too and I even get lost in this idea I have of ‘us' as eternal soul mates. You have me, Allie. You'll always have me. I don't mean to say I'm not here for you.” His voice was a door slamming far off in the distance.

“I need to know my old friends are there. I can't do this divorce alone,” I said, about to lose my last bit of strength. “It's not the orphan talking . . .”

“You sure?” he asked. “Because from where I'm standing, I think you're going to be okay with or without me.”

My anger flared, remembering Jackie telling me the same thing, that I needed some time on my own. “Why does everyone keep saying that? Isn't it possible that I don't
want
to do the impossible alone? Why do I have to be okay? Why can't I want the crutch I want to get through this?” Full slide backward now. “I promise you, I can't do it. Any of it. Of course I'm going to take care of the kids, but the rest I don't know if I can do and I'm so scared and I . . .” I started sobbing those horrible wails where I couldn't breathe or catch my breath. I felt like a full-on crazy woman in need of a horse tranquilizer.

The world went still.